Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 063

Twenty short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Volume 63 features essays on a variety of topics: the emotion of the multitude in drama (Yeats), audience (Encyclopedia Britannica), corpulence and diet (Banting), charity (Ambrose Bierce), the forgotten man (Sumner), murder (DeQuincey), suicide (Bierce), free masonry (Albert Pike), the poetic principle (Poe), and the evils of slavery (Othello). Excerpts from Kierkegaard explore his philosophy. Biographical sketches include Calamity Jane, Joseph Glidden, Lucy Bakewell Audubon, and J. M. W. Turner, while Joseph Conrad speaks to his own life in A Familiar Preface. Rounding out the volume is a fascinating 1674 meet-up with a miraculous sea-monster (probably a giant squid). Summary by Sue Anderson